Well, a few updates from my week just gone.

Monday and Tuesday passed with no incident, just going to the institute in the afternoon to join in on classes and look at some work with Laura.

On Wednesday, I went back to the gym! I was even prepared to go again on Friday (Noly and I are trying to go 2/3 times a week) but Nolz backed out so I actually exercised at home. For the second time. So yeah, I think that basically makes me an athlete now, right? 😏

Thursday was an eventful day! I had been feeling wobbly the night prior and then on Thursday again started feeling wobbly, as I had been feeling a bit cut off from the community and a bit isolated. Noly popped round and I felt intermittently better and then wobbly and upset throughout the afternoon and then when it came to leaving and going to the institute I felt wobbly once again! After I’d arrived, it was abso fine! I finally felt stable. And then after the institute, I went to the supermarket by myself, spent a while gathering some foody bits (was going to treat myself to some pringles since I’d had a wobbly day 😏), only to find that twenty mins later when I went to the till my card didn’t work. I told the lady (at least, I think I told her. I can never be quite sure what I actually say when speaking in Spanish haha) that it had worked the other day so please try it again, which she did, but to no avail. Feeling very sorry for myself, I headed back to the block of flats where I’m staying. Immediately Noly called me and was like ‘Do you want me to order you some food?’ and sobbing, Nadz mutters under her breath (much like a small child or toddler) ‘…Yeahh..’, Noly: ‘What would you like? A big fat sandwich?’, Nadz: ‘..Yeahh.. With chips…’, Noly: ‘With chips?’, Nadz: ‘….Yeah…’. Well anyhow, it arrived a while later and honestly, it was glorious. (Sandwiches here are so good). Problem solved, Nadz is happy again! Haha.

Friday was a long day! Thankfully, Noly agreed to be my secretary and during the day we researched various groups and bits I could do in the community that might help me feel less isolated (potentially some artsy crafty groups) as well as working out what to say to a lady who contacted me about having private lessons. We also managed to find a cash point so I would have some cash on me in the event of my card not working and then I went off for round 2 of Nadz vs the supermarket. (Unsurprisingly, now I was able to splash the cash, I won round 2.)

At just gone 4 it was time for me to go off to the institute for 4 back to back classes. Eesht! In two of them, the CD was playing up, so I became the CD and read out some of the short story they were studying, making sure to speak super slowly and enunciate clearly.

After I’d finished at the institute, I walked back to the block of flats where I’m staying and got myself ready to go out. Noly and a few others had been offered a gaming sponsorship thing and they were going to meet up to have dinnerm take a look at contracts and ask questions etc. And plus 1s were allowed. Hurrah! Whilst this kind of thing is usually my worst nightmare (not knowing anyone else there and not being able to communicate), I was actually really looking forward to this as I’ve never really been around at a time when Nolz has been invited to have a plus 1. (Also wanted to keep an eye on Nolz incase he got over excited and signed a ridiculous contract hahaha). On the downside, dinner wasn’t until about 10. Typically of Argentina, it was about 10.30 before everyone arrived and then we didn’t order until 11.15, with food coming at about 11.30. Noly sat there, twitching and I thought he looked super stressed about the whole contract sitchu, working out what to do etc, but when I asked him, turns out he was just feeling hungry hahaha.

Above are pictures of the apartment block I’m staying in and my room 😊

So anyways, that’s been my second full working week! It’s Saturday as I write this, and nothing really to report of this weekend thus far, other than the fact that I’m staying with la familia de Matus once again (Noly’s family). It’s a long weekend as there’s a bank holiday on Monday so yay!

That being said, I am teaching my first lesson on Tuesday. Eek! So I need to prep for that. Laura’s gone through it all with me though so I know what I’m doing.

Another thing I have on next week is my first meeting with two ladies who want to have 2:1 conversation classes with me. I’m meeting them on Wednesday morning to have a chat, find out their level of English and see if there’s anything they particularly want to work on so everything feels a bit more real now. I think it will help me to start doing private classes as well as it’ll give me a bit more to do with my time. I have some other potential students in the pipeline as well so that’s a start 🙂

To end this blog, I will leave you on a funnies. Often, when I am speaking to Noly I correct his English. Sometimes it will be his pronunciation. Sometimes I will analyse what tense he’s used and ponder why it sounded funny. Since working at the English institute, I must be doing it more, since yesterday he said to me, with a smile, ‘You’ve grown exponentially more annoying since doing that TESOL course…’ 😂

I had a little bit of a wobble this weekend about being here and so I’ve very much had to put my big girl pants on and face the world! During my wobble, Noly encouraged me to list the things that I have achieved this past week, most of which I haven’t mentioned in this blog, so I shall mention them now. This post is mainly to remind myself of my achievements but might be interesting for my avid readers (you guys) as well 😉

1. I survived my first week of work without any drama or any real wobblies! Obviously I felt a bit nervous at points this past week, but as previously stated, everyone at Camelot Institute is absolutely lovely and they’re easing me in gently so haven’t had to actually teach yet (phew!). First week of work – tick!
2. I, Nadia Glover, went to the gym for pretty much the first time ever! As a self professed gym hater and unenthusiast, this is a mega achievement for me. I am yet to go back but that’s besides the point…
3. I went food shopping on my own. Whilst this won’t seem like a big achievement on the surface, I managed to buy everything I wanted to without coming home and finding I’d bought half a llama or something by mistake. (I find shopping a bit tricksy as I don’t know all the food vocab en Espanol.)
4. I sucked it up and spoke loads of Spanish at the weekend with Noly’s family, at the youth group and at church. Oh and also at the institute! (Some of the classes I was in wanted me to say various bits and bobs and were checking my pronunciation of perro – tricky rrrrr sound which I can kind of do, thank goodness!) It’s been quite satisfying because quite a few people have said to me ‘Puedes hablar mucho en Espanol’ – ‘You can speak a lot of Spanish’ so that’s a good sign, even if my grammar is horrendous hahaha. This is also a big thing for me, actually going for it, because usually it takes me ages to build up the confidence to actually try.
5. I cooked using lentils, which is a first!
6. I sang in the church band on Sunday. This is quite tricky for me to do as the songs are obviously in Spanish and sometimes I don’t know them, so I have to get used to the pronunciation, rhythm and also work out the harmony for them. We only practised on Saturday evening and then again on Sunday morning so not much time but I actually really enjoy being in the band on harmonies 🙂
7. I went for a wander around to try and orient myself to my surroundings (those who know me well know that my sense of direction is absolutely nil) and ended up vaguely where I was expecting to come out! I didn’t get horrendously lost or even lost at all. Score!

Oh and also, not an achievement, but I watched the film End Game yesterday and goodness gracious, I’m still not over it. After watching it I just needed time to weep hahaha.

Well that’s all for now, but here are a selection of some photos from the last few days 🙂

Well some amazing, and quite frankly ridiculous, things have happened since last I posted, so I thought I should probably catch you up to speed!

So in the early hours of Saturday morning Marta (who’s apartment I am staying in) left Salta to go to Spain, leaving me to fend for myself at her place. Naturally, I abandoned ship and soon on Saturday afternoon found myself at the Matus’ house, where I stayed for the weekend. Noly is studying for exams at the moment so we didn’t get up to anything particularly, just went to the youth group in the evening at church. After the preach and worship the youth usually have food, but since Noly and I haven’t really done anything together we left to get dinner.

On Sunday it was church followed by going back to the Matus’ as some of the family were coming round for lunch. Then at about 9 myself and Noly headed out for a birthday bash! Involving more yummy food called choripan. Nom.

The next day (Monday) was my first day at the English institute called Camelot. And whilst I was feeling exceedingly anxious, I needn’t have at all, as Camelot is amazing! The other teachers, head and receptionist are quite honestly some of the loveliest people I have ever met! (and I’m not just saying this because they might be reading this, honests!) Laura, the head, showed me around the institute and I met a lot of the classes. All the classes were keen to ask me questions (my favourite being ‘What’s your favourite toy?’) and meet me and I was thoroughly welcomed.

Now before I launch on to the next part of the story, some background info. On Monday I had been in Salta for only a few days and at this point didn’t have an Argentinian sim, so my phone was still on aeroplane mode and I could only contact people when on wifi. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be at the institute so Noly and I had agreed that after his exam (that was taking place at 4) he would come and wait outside the institute and if for any reason he wasn’t there, I would just walk back to Marta’s.

So at about 7pm I was sitting down with Laura, going through some test papers when there was a knock on the door and we were told someone was there – to see me! Turns out it was Noly. I was wracked with guilt as I thought he’d been waiting for hours and hours! Laura turned to me and asked ‘are you going?’ and I garbled back ‘I don’t know! Maybe? But I can stay? I don’t mind! Whatever’s best!’ and so went out to see Noly and ended up leaving. As it turns out, he’d only been waiting about 10 mins before getting bored and had only come in with the intention of giving me my sim but instead left with me in tow! Ha.

The amazing thing about all this, was that when I got back to Marta’s apartment, I turned on the oven, about to roast some butternut squash and after about two minutes was plunged into darkness. Help! The fuse box was probably about the only thing Marta hadn’t shown me! It also meant the wifi cut out too. However, after about 10 mins of scrambling around in the dark looking for a paperclip to open up my phone to put my new sim in, I managed it and could ring Noly for some help (i.e. how do you say ‘fuse box’ in Spanish!). In the end, I rang the porters downstairs and managed to garble some Spanish out, something along the lines of ‘I don’t have lights, I don’t know where the fuse box is and I don’t speak much Spanish, please help me!’. Well anyways, up he came and sorted it out. But I really found the timing of this amazing. Whilst it made me feel a bit panicky (stranded in the dark in a city that I’m not yet used to with noone immediately able to help me and not being able to fully communicate with people), it would have been so much worse had it been the night before when I didn’t have a sim card. This may seem to some like a silly thing to be thankful to God for, but I really believe this was God looking out for me, only letting something like that happen when I could actually deal with it.

So that was ridiculous thing numero uno. Onto ridiculous thing number two!

After church on Sunday I asked the pastor if he knew of any English speaking churches and explained that whilst I want to integrate into the community here and learn Spanish, it’s really hard for me to not understand much at church as I don’t ever feel spiritually fed. Before I knew it, it was suggested that we put on some English services, with me potentially as one of the preachers! Help! This is not quite what I had anticipated and not at all what I had bargained for, especially after only being here for all of five minutes! So we’ll see what happens with that one!

Well anyways, I think that’s all for now! I shall leave you with a picture of Salta I took last night.

After 44 hours of travelling, I made it safe and sound to Argentina! Despite having only two flights, as opposed to my customary three flights (going via Brazil or Peru), this has been the longest journey I have had to do to make it here. Flights all went without hiccups and for once, had quite a relaxing connection as my connecting flight wasn’t until the following day, so I had about 20 hours hanging around at a hotel in Buenos Aires. Going through passport control was also all fine and soon the main worries I had about my journey had all been surpassed. Hallelujah!

The fun and games really happened about ten minutes after I’d arrived in Salta. I was back with Noly (hurrah!) and we were on our way to lunch when Noly decided to take on the kurb in the middle of a busy roundabout. Needless to say, we lost that battle quite spectacularly and were suddenly stranded on the middle of a busy roundabout with an incredibly bust up front left tyre and a car that wouldn’t move an inch! (I should mention at this point that neither of us were badly hurt, I just got bad rope burn on my neck from the seat belt.) A whole troupe of police turned up, stopped the traffic and then managed, with great effort, to push the car to the side of the road. My role during this part was the vital role of overseer and quite frankly, I nailed it 😉

So the rest of the afternoon was spent sorting out the car, taking it to the garage etc. Not quite the way we had imagined my arrival would be to Argentina, but who wants to be conventional after all?

Nothing else really to report yet, other than the fact I am now set up at Marta’s (Noly’s grandmother) apartment in the city centre. I am feeling rather like a domestic goddess, as I finally managed to work out how to use the kettle using a gas hob. I have always been super intimidated by gas hobs. I feel that the level of my accomplishment doesn’t quite match how victorious I feel about it but there you are. Nadia 1, Gas hob 0. I think I am additionally very happy with this accomplishment since it has enabled me to have my first cup of English tea whilst I’ve been here.

Sadly, I have now finished said cup of tea and I have no more excuses left to not be unpacking, so alas, no more procrastination..

For anyone who is a pray-er or a sender of good thoughts please pray for me as I settle into life in Argentina. Specific prayer points:
-That I would have a good support network out here, make friends and not feel isolated, despite my stilted Spanish.
-That I will have the confidence to try out the Spanish I do have and not feel too intimidated by the language barrier.
-Safety and health.
-That my introduction to my new job will go well and won’t make me feel too overwhelmed. (This is happening on Monday 3rd June at 4pm, so 8pm English time).

That’s all for now, over and out!